Boost to education

Jamshedpur, Feb. 5: The huge spurt in the number of examinees taking the matriculation and Intermediate examinations has forced the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) to increase the number of examination centres this year.

While the matriculation examination would see a whopping 3.41 lakh students take the test this year, about 2.15 lakh students would appear in the intermediate examinations in this year’s edition.

The figures stand in stark contrast to the 2.84 lakh candidates who had appeared for their matriculation examination in 2007 as also the 1.75 lakh students who had answered their intermediate examination last year.

“The number of private candidates have gone up with more unrecognised schools involved in imparting education today,” said Shaligram Yadav, the chairman of the JAC.

About 180 private schools are sending aspirants to answer both state-level examinations.

The examination centres this year has gone up to 607 for the matriculation test while that of the intermediate stands at 198. Starting this year, students would be given 15 minutes extra time which has been earmarked by the Council as reading time. “The three-hour matriculation paper would begin at 9.45 am, with students beginning to write at 10 am.

While for the Intermediate examination, the official time would be from 2 pm to 5.15 pm,” said the chairman. The East Singhbhum district alone has registered an increase in the number of four centres in the area, with the figure standing at 25 this year.